


saving smiles for you

by unsettled



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-31
Updated: 2011-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-15 06:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsettled/pseuds/unsettled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Nicholas has many expressions.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	saving smiles for you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scrapbullet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapbullet/gifts).



> Postcardfic for scrapbullet , eeep, so I couldn't actually find the final version of this, hope this is close to what you actually got (let me know if it's not). Title from, of all things, a Vanessa Carlton song.

Nicholas has many expression; Henry has learned all of them, he thinks, and there are very few that could be called smiles. There are many that are something resembling smiles, are just one or two tilted degrees off.

There's something slow and sly, something that deepens the corners of his mouth, that screams _I know something you don't, something you'll never know, or understand, and the joke is at your expense_. There's something lopsided and impish, a question, and when coupled with a certain tilt of head, becomes a challenge, and goad, _surely, you can counter that. I expect so much more; don't disappoint me_. There's something sharp and cold that never reaches his eyes, that he reserves for morons and incompetents, right before he cuts them down with words that aren't nearly as kind as they sound. None of those could rightly be called smiles.

But there's an expression he gets when he looks up and sees Henry, something warm and pleased; it can't be called a smile either, but it's lovely all the same, and Henry thinks he is exceptionally lucky that it's saved for him. 


End file.
